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I was watching a video where the host was asked whether he thought voting should be mandatory.

He was split on the issue, and argued a bit from both perspectives. On one hand he thought that since we have mandatory jury duty, it makes sense that we could have mandatory voting. He also argued it might be better for the country, since in polling, America (and you could likely argue the same in many Western countries) the country leans Left, which means the Liberal party would be far more likely to win.

On the other hand, he didn’t much like the idea that people would be forced to vote.

I’m pretty firmly in the camp against mandatory voting. In fact, I think mandatory jury duty is awful as well, and it isn’t a good excuse to force people to do more.

Anyhow, I made a video about it that goes a little bit more in depth. It also includes the original hosts points.

The combined wealth of the richest 1 percent will overtake that of the other 99 percent of people next year unless the current trend of rising inequality is checked, Oxfam warned today ahead of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.

So basically, instead of having a minimum wage, you would have a maximum wage. Either this would mean that people weren’t allowed to make over a certain number depending on their profession or (and I like this option better) depending on how much the highest paid person of that company makes, the lowest worker would be guaranteed a certain amount.

So for example (and these are hypothetical numbers) the CEO of company A makes $500,000 per year. This might mean that the lowest paid position in that company is guaranteed to make 10% of that amount, which would work out to $50,000 per year.

As wages for the highest paid positions go up, so to does the wages of the lowest paid positions.

The arguments I’ve heard against this position (or ones I could imagine) are that by capping wages, you take away the incentive to achieve more. This would especially be true in the first scenario that features a hard cap on wages, but the second scenario of scaling wages would still allow for wage increases but would simply mean that those wage increases would be across the board.

You could also argue that it will take a lot of bureaucracy to figure out a fair percentage between the highest paid positions and the lowest, but I don’t think that’s a great argument because it could be done given enough political will.

The most convincing argument against a maximum wage or scaled wage system is that it will chase companies away. They won’t want to operate within a system that doesn’t allow them to take advantage of…errr…increase their pay without also raising the pay of their employees.

Personally, I can see why that might raise concerns.

So what are your thoughts? Do you think either of these two ideas have merit or do you believe the way things run now is working better than either of these ever could?

Hell, I’m no economist. I’m surprised I’m even typing this because money and math both bore the shit out of me.

At one point, the victim was threatened with a knife and told to curse President-elect Donald Trump.

“Say f— Donald Trump,” someone is heard saying.

“F— Donald Trump,” the victim says.

And:

The suspects, three of whom are Chicago residents, are expected to be charged in the next 24 hours, Cmdr. Duffin said. Police will determine whether kidnapping or hate crime charges will be given to the suspects, who he described as “young adults.” They have all given video statements.

When I first heard this story on social media last night, I tried finding it on major news networks because I thought it might be a hoax. There have been several fake hate crimes reported since the election of Donald Trump, but this one seems to be the real thing.

Last night I was able to find a story on CBS but other mainstream news channels have begun to report on it this morning.

I think it should definitely be classified as a hate crime. It was racially and politically motivated and they have video evidence of the attackers yelling racial and political slurs.

The reason why I’ve written so much about ideologies lately on this blog is because of identity politics and how dangerous I believe it to be. I think this is another direct result of that.

We put people into racial and gender categories instead of treating them like individuals and then we teach some of those categories that other groups are oppressing them. We even teach people that some groups are incapable of being racist, when that (power + prejudice = racism) clearly isn’t true.

I think these types of events will continue to escalate as long as we go down the insidious path of identity politics.

Interestingly, Christians are more likely to be okay with the use of “Happy Holidays” than the general population. Sixty percent of non-Christians supported the use of the term, compared to 62 percent of those who identified as Christian.

Additionally, 39 percent of respondents asserted that holiday-themed branding had no impact on their decision to shop at a particular store.

So yeah. I made a video about it. It saves on typing. *wink*

Do you find either Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays offensive?

Spoiler alert: I think this falls under the ‘live and let live category’. Say either and I’m good with it.

The appropriately named ‘Non Sit Peccatum’ (or ‘not a sin’ in Latin) was subjected to protests after shop owner Hector Valdivielso commissioned the images, which were displayed in the window.

As a result, he’s been (allegedly) threatened:

The shop owner took to Facebook to express his opinion, stating, “A man with his wife ordered me to remove the offending scene and said that if I didn’t he would remove it himself.”

Personally, I’m always wary when someone says they’ve been threatened but doesn’t have any more proof than their word. We’ve seen how this sort of accusation can turn out to be a hoax after the American election, where crybabies were falsely accusing others of hate crimes that didn’t take place.

The store owner did post a letter he says he received as a result of the dildo Nativity scene:

Valdivielso also posted an image of a hate letter he received, which read: “Don’t you have the balls to display something that would offend Muslims? Of course not, because they would blow you up.”

He has since taken the display down, and started asking people to vote online about whether the display should go back up, which smacks of a publicity campaign.

But I do have to admit that the story made me chuckle when I first read it, and I absolutely think he should be allowed to put up the display.

However, I can certainly understand when people make the argument that it’s in poor taste.

The suit alleges that the Latin cross “is the preeminent symbol of Christianity, representing the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus.” So if the display is religious, the suit argues, it has no business on town property. The documents go on to say that every day, Tompkins “is forced to come into direct and unwelcome contact” with the cross on top of the tree as he drives through town. This, it says, has caused him “irreparable harm,” which can only be remedied by taking the cross down and paying Tompkins monetary damages.

The lawsuit also specifies that Tompkins doesn’t want his taxes helping light and maintain a religious display on town property.

First off, I think the claim that the cross was doing irreparable harm to the resident (Joseph Tompkins) is just ridiculous.

Yesterday I saw this story and watched a video where they made pretty much the same case against taking down the cross as the article does:

“There’s a church on every corner here,” said Mark. “There’s a church on every corner. Is he offended by all the crosses?”

This isn’t a good defense, unless you’re only talking about the ridiculous ‘irreparable harm’ part of the lawsuit.

Putting up religious imagery on private property is different than putting it up on public property using government funds.

With that being said, maybe I’m just getting soft in my old age, but I think it a shame that the cross was taken down. I understand that the resident is likely in the right legally, but I just don’t think this was a necessary move.

It might have something to do with the whining tone of ‘irreparable harm’ that has rubbed me the wrong way, which makes me less charitable towards the person filing the suit.

Then again, the town’s response is hardly better:

Memo to Knightstown: You could always have hundreds of crosses lit on private property across town. It’s not like this lawsuit changed your ability to light crosses and put them up on church property etc.

I don’t know. The passive aggressive nature of the response is a bit annoying as well.

So my opinion so far is that legally the resident was likely right, and the town made the right decision to take the cross down, rather than spend taxpayer money fighting a suit they’d likely lose.

However, I think the lawsuit was whiny, petty and not something that really needs to be fought, but like I said, maybe I’m just getting soft.